Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington dived right into the most glaring and obvious question of the day following the company’s May IPO.
How does Zuckerberg feel about the IPO given that the company’s share price has fallen by nearly half in four months? Facebook shares trade at $19.43, down from the $38 price they debuted at in May.
“Well, the performance of the stock has obviously been disappointing,” he said in his first on-stage interview since the IPO, before reiterating Facebook’s mission to make the world more “open and connected.” He added, “It’s not the first up and down that we ever had.”
He said that Facebook’s performance over the next three to five years will be the company’s ability to transition to and monetize its audience on mobile devices.
Arrington prodded him on whether the stock performance has affected internal morale at the company.
“Well, you know it doesn’t help,” he said. He added, “Maybe some people will leave. I actually think it’s a great time for people to join and also for people to stay and double down.”
He added that the company hasn’t really done anything special in terms of compensation since. Arrington asked Zuckerberg about the famous part of his investor letter in the company’s original IPO filing that said that Facebook “doesn’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”
Zuckerberg said that the business mission and the company’s social mission go hand in hand and that he’s conscientious of his employees’ desires to make money in addition to having impact on the world.
Check out our full coverage of Mark Zuckerberg’s chat at Disrupt SF below.
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